Couscous and Fruit Juice

THIS WEEK marks the beginning of a new year, 2011 A.D. - my graduation year!! I had a great time partying Christian style at my church with my friends and family on New Year's Night. With this new year I'm making a point of listening more carefully to God, letting go any hard feelings of the past year, and just celebrating the fact that I get to celebrate Jesus in the world during a brand new year. This is going to be awesome. I know He has some beautiful things planned, and I'm excited that we all get to be part of His plan.

One night this week before the new year I did not get any sleep at all. Not five minutes. I spent part of the long night reading, part trying to fall asleep, and the last part knitting with the radio on (88.1 "The Promise"). This meant that I had the chance to wake up early this Thursday morning and think about what to do first. After my dad had left for work and before my mom woke up, I decided to have breakfast with Jesus in the backyard.

I heated up for myself some couscous and poured some fruit juice, grabbed my journal and my Bible, and went out and sat at the old picnic table. The morning sky was light and cold, and the sun had not quite come up yet.

I wore my boots and a big jacket over my fuzzy pajamas, and since I hadn't put on my contacts yet I was still in my glasses. I could see my breath rising above my couscous like steam from a kettle. And I just sat there eating and enjoying the day the Lord had made. It was very beautiful. There were birds in the trees far above and around me. I even saw a blue bird go across from the leafless tree to my left to the rainbow-painted oak tree to my right.

And then the sun came up, and there was gold all over everything to my right. I walked over and saw that the sun was now visible, and the more I watched the trees the more beautiful they got. I sang a little to Jesus. I read Luke 17 and wrote about it in my journal. I am glad I had that moment to rest and to just talk to God. I'm so glad He always listens.

Later that day I watched a very interesting movie called "Eat Pray Love." It is a story about a woman who spends a year traveling in Italy, India, and Bali looking for inner peace and self-discovery. She speaks with new friends, tries out the teachings of an Indian guru, and consults a little old mountain man to aid her in this search. All the while she is trying to deal with the end of her brief marriage as well as that of her relationship with her actor boyfriend, whom she had met about the time of her divorce.

I liked this movie. It is an interesting view of a woman's eye-opening journey through the world. I enjoyed the beautiful scenery and places featured in the film.

In the end she seems to have found happiness with a Brazilian man she met in Bali. I prayed, wondering why she could be happy in the end without having found a relationsip with Jesus Christ. After all, she looked in a lot of different places but not to Him. I see that although she had become happier and learned to "love herself," she did not find the inner peace she was searching for. She did learn some good lessons. For example, she learned that she shouldn't worry too much. She also learned that she shouldn't cling to the past and let it hurt her. She learned about a need for "balance," which in practice seems very difficult to acheive.

I was reminded that there are a lot of ways to happiness, but only one way to peace. Every heart desires eternity and significance, which can only come from God. But we can't get to God by our own strength - that's why He came to us in the flesh and gave Himself for us.

After the movie was over (when I should have been going to sleep) I went and found a World Religions book on one of the shelves in my room. I like to read about other people's religions because I think it's good to know what other people believe. I read about some of the more popular religions in the world. People seek God in a lot of different ways, because we all need Him.

It's stunning to me how God has made His way so separate from every other religion in the world. In two sentences He made it so that He cannot be satisfactorily grouped with the others. John 14:6 "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." He has designed it with such wisdom that however surprising and unusual it is, it can only have been designed by a God who can see all of time at once, so that old prophecies could be fulfilled. He is the only God who ever gave His life to save the world. And He is alive today. I love having Him in my life.

1 Corinthians 1:18 "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." and v.21 "For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe."

How wonderful it is that He is willing to save anybody! And how beautiful that He made the message of salvation accessible to anybody. It's not complex at all. That's just the thing that appears "foolish" about it, when it is truly very wise. John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believed in Him shuold not perish but have everlasting life."

That' what I wanted to tell the woman in "Eat Pray Love." I wanted to let her know that although learning and travel are good, she didn't have to go across the world to find self-discovery and inner peace. God loves us. He wants to help us find ourselves in Him and to give us the peace we can't find anywhere else. Like I told my cousin Rina at the New Year Party, this woman could have just come to my church where we were celebrating a new year in Christ and seen what it is we're so excited about.

Have a very Happy New Year!!